Health care practitioners treating patients in succession commonly make repeated use of devices and tools which necessarily operate in contact with body fluid and/or tissue and which therefore require thorough disinfecting and sterilizing between each patient use. Such devices, referred to herein as dental-medical devices, often have moving parts, typically in their interior. These moving parts define interstices in which body fluid and tissue can lodge and present difficulties in removal. An example of such a device is a dental turbine handpiece.
Not only must such devices be disinfected and sterilized between uses but their moving parts require frequent lubrication for optimum operation. My U.S. application Ser. No. 08/079,410 filed Jun. 31, 1993, entitled "Method of Flushing, Disinfecting and Lubricating a Dental Turbine Handpiece", discloses a method of forcing a pressurized solution of disinfectant and lubricant simultaneously through a dental handpiece. The disclosed solution comprises water, glycerin and chlorhexidine gluconate. Dental debris is flushed from the device, including the moving parts within its interior, and after subsequent autoclaving a residuum of the solution is left as a lubricant for the moving parts.
Earlier in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,695,255 I disclosed a solution of about 25% to 70% (specifically 40%) by volume of water, about 5% to 35% (specifically 20%) by volume of potable alcohol such as ethanol and about 10% to 45% (specifically 40%) by volume of glycerin. That patent discloses the use of such a solution for cooling and lubricating human hard tissue during power tool cutting. The alcohol functions as a disinfectant and the glycerin serves as a lubricant.
It is the principal object of the present invention to improve upon the solutions described above to enhance lubricity and, in doing so, to prevent foaming.